Lovely aluminum furniture that will last hundreds of years
Cole sez, "I make highly sustainable furniture out of aluminum that involves no fasteners or moving parts. My furniture will last functionally for hundreds of years and it's aesthetically pleasing as well. Watch out, I am currently designing a table in a steampunky style."
the latest
latest episodes
The artwork on the side of that bench looks... weird...
Oh, and, steampunk!
Oh-oh.
Somebody said the "S" word.
Cue the Steampunk haters in 3..2..1..
Steampunk! Steampunk! Steampunk! Hehe.
I hear they make wooden furniture that can last hundreds of years, too.
Aluminium ore is plentiful, but smelting it takes a great deal of energy so close attention must be paid to where and how a particular chunk of aluminium came into being before you can label it 'sustainable.'
That doesn't look terribly comfortable.
That thing looks hns.
Whats your point? Prior to IKEA, most furniture was meant to last functionally for a very long time. You should check out this show I watch sometimes on PBS...
... I watch sometimes on PBS ...
I find it interesting that he compares his furniture against cheap stuff that is "designed to last only a few years".
I can't find a price anywhere on the site or in the articles about him, which usually implies it is through the roof.
I'd love to see the cost of his furniture vs the cost of cheap-quality throw-away furniture.
You can only usefully compare your furniture to the cheaps stuff if it is priced the same as the cheap stuff. If yours runs to the cost of heirloom quality hardwood furniture you are doing *nothing* to help the people who can only afford the cheap stuff.
This is my complaint about a lot of supposedly "sustainable" or "recycled/recyclable" stuff, most of it is priced insanely higher than the stuff they are claiming to replace.
Not applicable to this guy, but the even worse situation is when they take some used item/material, and apply a ton of work to "recycle" it into some artistic bit of furniture/clothing/decoration and sell it for a ton of money. You are not helping the environment much if you're spending 20 hours reworking a couple old bike wheels into a chair you sell for $400. All you're doing is making money of people with more money than sense, which is fine, but don't go calling it "sustainable".
i have a favourite rock...
Should we really be that impressed by anyone that can weld bar/tube stock and sheet metal together? The art on it adds a nice touch, but they look like metal shop 101 projects.
are there any blacksmiths out there? It seems to me that Victorian Revival/Steampunkian furniture should come largely from the blacksmiths art.
Well, if it's aluminum then it's pretty tough to weld without melting, if I recall correctly.
argon
Yes?
:D ... helium, too.
@11
Yay! Enough steampunk, it's time for stoneage revival. Neolithic revolution now!
I agree that these are probably going to be overpriced. I also take issue with the claim that these will last hundreds of years. Looking at the tables with long legs welded to the underside makes me think that once a leg snaps off due to a weak weld made by an art student, the table will be scrap.
"Cole sez, "I make highly sustainable furniture out of aluminum that involves no fasteners or moving parts. My furniture will last functionally for hundreds of years and it's aesthetically pleasing as well. Watch out, I am currently designing a table in a steampunky style.""
Seriously, quit the eco-bullshit, what kind of idiot would buy that mining, refining, smelting and shaping aluminum is in any way ecologically friendly?
..but... but- there's crude stick figures drawn on the side of it, clearly making it Art and not 'some electrical box that I cut up!'
Sometimes I wonder why I cling to my distaste for swindling money from stupid people.
pure argoshield, and AC to pull the slag off the top of the weld.
@18:
Cavepunk.
Stonepunk?
Wow - you guys are harsh and make a lot of assumptions about price, quality and where he gets his materials. Researching before commenting - might be a good thing for all.
I think he's got some cool furniture and awesome art work. Way more talent than I. I guess Metal Shop 101 didn't get me very far though.
Way cool, man. Way cool stuff!
Takuan, blacksmiths can be found. They aren't terribly common these days, but the SCA is a good place to look. The Crucible also teaches blacksmithing, and has an amazing master blacksmith who does commission work as well. (A lot of the SCA blacksmiths also teach, for those not in the Bay Area.)
Re: Anthony, #14: pretty much all metal is hard to weld without melting. In fact, I'd say nigh impossible, since that's what welding is.
The thing that makes aluminum hard to weld is that it is highly reactive with oxygen. Adding heat only makes this worse, so if you try to do it without a protective sheath gas (which Takuan referred to), you'll get a brittle Al2O3 joint.
That nice aluminum finish? It's aluminum oxide, as well, and it's called a "capping oxide". Since Al2O3 bonds are so tight, you have to use alternating current to break up the oxide instead of direct current.
The capping oxide has one other problem. Unlike chromium, aluminum's capping oxide isn't very good. Some oxygen diffuses through, and the oxide layer gets thicker over time (veeerrrry slowly). That means that the aluminum gets brittle and loses strength (decades later for thin pieces, like tent poles).
He is claiming that he seals it and powder coats it. This could prevent/slow the above effect enough to make the centuries claim reasonable.
However, powder coating is NOT steampunk. I'm sorry. It just isn't. That granular plasticky coating on your beige box? That's a powder coat. Steampunk? I think not.
On the other hand, it sounds like he's doing stuff with powder coats that no one else is (multi-color patterns using masks, &c.), which is pretty cool.
Speaking of eco-aluminium, if any of you folk ever get a chance to go to Iceland, check out their geothermal powered Aluminium plant!
The smelting hall itself is an insane vision of hell, they have a room about quarter of a mile long full of vats of melting bauxite / aluminium, and they have finished slabs of metal standing on end like polished versions of the monolith in 2001.
It's very costly to extract aluminum from ore, but once it's in metallic form it can be remelted and cast easily. Numerous articles exist online showing how to cast aluminum with minimal equipment.
Welding is awesome. I did quite a bit of it when I worked in a tooling shop and had to fabricate heavy duty carts for machines. I would invent reasons to fab stuff out of steel instead of whittling it out of aluminum on a Bridgeport.
I have access to a flux wire welder and I'm thinking of excuses to weld stuff for the Steampunk audio amplifier I'm designing, The Thermionic ElectroModulator MK VIII.
I weld in my dreams.
I'd much rather grab heavy buckets of molten lava, dump them into earthen forming molds, and make 'molded' rock furniture .....
....that's really rock.
"it's aesthetically pleasing as well" PLEASE!!! every single thing this man has created is hideous, looks like paper doll furiture and doesnt deserve to last longer than i can throw it.
Aluminum is the Other Steampunk metal. How long until this thread becomes a discussion on the "proper" spelling of "Aluminium"?
Steampunk may be a wide and democratic style, but even by the broadest of definitions, this bench AIN'T Steampunk- nor do I believe that it was ever intended to be.
It's a simple, modern design with "art nouveau" stylde etching on the side.
is there any way to justify external tube heat-sinks in the form of Mississippi steam boat stacks (for the Thermionic ElectroModulator Mark VIII? Will there be crystal rods and delicately turned ivory (ok,FAUX-IVORY) levers? Glowing control buttons lit from within with flame? Huh huh huh ????
Do. Not. Want.
If someone gave me this I'd take it to the scrap yard.
Blacksmiths? Dude, I can point you to a farrier.
@34;
There's no way to justify a tube amp except by wanting one. I like the steamboat stacks idea. I assume you mean the kind with out-turned triangular points on top. I can make them out of 2" copper tubing with no problem.
No actual fire, but I've scored a dozen big NE30 bulbs, which look appropriately glowy and mysterious.
Crystal? Faux ivory? Ok. I'll work on that...
"Enough steampunk, it's time for stoneage revival. Neolithic revolution now!"
YES!!! ;)
My vote is for "Cavepunk" - heh.
(stonepunk would probably be more accurate... but I like the sound of cavepunk better)
My 2 cents.
I like the idea of it. (though the aesthetics of this particular bench does not appeal to me.) Strong and durable yet still recyclable. Yes wood is lovely and under good conditions can last forever, but not under all conditions (say an outside bench)
And I dislike the idea that /everything/ must be "biodegradable" to be "environmental". Because biodegradable = rots. Somethings I want to last... pritty much forever, or at least for as long as I am around. For those things I would prefer items that specifically /won't/ degrade, but are recyclable or easily re-purposed (thus still environmentally responsible).
Like a huge hunk of aluminum ;)
I guess I should work on my metal fabrication skills. :)
Maybe BB should just start a mirror site called I Hate Everything. Instead of having to bother with actually composing (and I use that term very loosely) a comment, one could simply check off one or more boxes:
√ I don't like this style.
√ I don't like this price.
√ This is ecologically unsound.
√ This is morally unsound.
√ How is this wonderful?
√ This is not news.
√ Stop making fun of Japan.
Next, select a modifier:
√ Bilious
√ Vitriolic
√ Splenetic
√ Apoplectic
Just hit submit and you've exposed your unresolved anger and barely repressed bitterness for the world to see. No fuss, no muss.
the I hate everything list is too short, and I don't like the font....
the Halloween favorite? http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?tabs=n&ModuleNo=46019&ma=neon%20flame%20candle%20bulb
"Highly Sustainable"
Bollocks dude. While making a piece of furniture or product last more than five years is commendable, it is only one little piece of the whole "sustainable" picture. Your stuff is "Moderately Sustainable" at best. Put a giant aluminium smelter in your back forty and see how green you think it is then, especially after you get your coal fired electricity bill.
Plus I don't get the pride in having no fasteners. That means your table has to be shipped in a big, table sized box that takes up more truck/boat space, therefore using more fuel. It takes more skill to design something that comes apart and ships flat then just taking laser cut legs and welding them on.
So sorry, but I call bullshit.
And from what I understand, Iceland doesn't have a working wholly powered geothermal smelter yet, but Alcoa did build a giant ass dam in a pristine wilderness area to power one of theirs. Now 80% of the countries total energy generation goes to smelters.
@30
I have seen video of a loon artist that hangs around fresh lava flows and molds the lava by hand (Big, honkling asbestos gloves - the sissy) into sculpture
Please tell me he wears some sort of mask as well. Magma fumes are almost as bad to inhale as your miasma.
will try to find video, think it was Hawaii
similar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH0Ekmx7Aek
TIG, MIG, whatever it takes. So I suck at welding.
Better leave the mask on when he removes them big ol' asbestos gloves
Threejeff, come on, man. I was referring to a problem with the aluminum pieces to be joined melting, not the process of welding.
("Gosh! When I weld the metal gets kind of melted where I point the gun!")
Nice zing though, real cool.
japanning finishing
http://www.oldtoolsshop.com/Galoots/pRMorin/html/japanning.html
*grits teeth at the lack of the 'i' in aluminium*
/spelling nazi
And yes, well aware of the regional differences here, it's just always bugged me :)
'loom-numb
Sustainable. How can a piece of furniture be "sustainable"?
"Sustainability is a characteristic of a process or state that can be maintained at a certain level indefinitely. The term, in its environmental usage, refers to the potential longevity of vital human ecological support systems, such as the planet's climatic system, systems of agriculture, industry, forestry, and fisheries, and human communities in general and the various systems on which they depend." - Wikipedia
The only reason people use the word is because they're implying that their product is better than those of their competitors, who clearly have "non-sutainable" products.
I call bull-shit too, and I also hate the eco-friendly clap-trap. What are we playing today, holistic buzzword bingo?
A bottle of Ivory Snow liquid detergent will "last" for 700 years in the landfill.
You could re use it yes
Besides the arguments allready presented above about sustainability, I'd furthermore like to say that i've just about had it with metal plate origami (taking a plate and folding it, voila product) and the joke of cutting out baroque forms out of a flat plate is getting pretty thin as well, in the last year of the +-200 folded/ slotted/lasered or waterjetted flat plate products i've maybe seen 2 or 3 good original ones, this stuff is probably one of the ugliest and unoriginal ever.
If you buy yourself an Eames chair it will still be beautiful after 40 years and durable(plus eames still delivers spare parts), and will remain timeless, and THAT is sustainablility imo.
Sorry that i'm on a rant.
Steampunk? Still?